O, dear are the images my memory calls up

Of Brian Borù!- how he never would miss To give me at the banquet the first bright cup! Ah! why did he heap on me honor like this? Why, O Kinkora ?

I am Mac Liag, and my home is on the Lake:
Thither often, to that palace whose beauty is fled,
Came Brian, to ask me, and I went for his sake.
O, my grief! that I should live, and Brian be dead!
Dead, O Kinkora!

James Clarence Mangan.

Kinsale.

THE BOATMAN OF KINSALE.

[IS kiss is sweet, his word is kind,

HIS

His love is rich to me;

I could not in a palace find
A truer heart than he.

The eagle shelters not his nest

From hurricane and hail

More bravely than he guards my breast,

The Boatman of Kinsale.

The wind that round the Fastnet sweeps
Is not a whit more pure;

The goat that down Cnoc Sheehy leaps
Has not a foot more sure.

No firmer hand nor freer eye

E'er faced an autumn gale;

De Courcy's heart is not so high,
The Boatman of Kinsale.

The brawling squires may heed him not,
The dainty stranger sneer,

But who will dare to hurt our cot,
When Myles O'Hea is here!
The scarlet soldiers pass along,

They'd like, but fear to rail;
His blood is hot, his blow is strong,
The Boatman of Kinsale.

His hooker's in the Scilly van,
When seines are in the foam;
But money never made the man,
Nor wealth a happy home.
So, blest with love and liberty,

While he can trim a sail,

He'll trust in God, and cling to me,

The Boatman of Kinsale.

Thomas Davis.

KINSALE.

THE inexplicable disaster at Kinsale, when, after their marvellous winter march, the two great Northern chiefs of Tirconnell and Tirone had succeeded in relieving their Spanish allies there, was one of those events upon which the history of a nation turns.

HAT man can stand amid a place of tombs,

WHAT

Nor yearn to that poor vanquished dust beneath?

Above a nation's grave no violet blooms;
A vanquished nation lies in endless death.

'Tis past: the dark is dense with ghost and vision!
All lost; the air is thronged with moan and wail :
But one day more and hope had been fruition:
O Athunree, thy fate o'erhung Kinsale!

What name is that which lays on every head

A hand like fire, striking strong locks gray?

What name is named not save with shame and dread? Once let us name it, then no more for aye!

Kinsale! accursed be he the first who bragged
"A city stands where roamed but late the flock";
Accursed the day when, from the mountain dragged,
Thy corner-stone forsook the mother-rock!

Aubrey De Vere.

0,

Lee, the River.

THE BANKS OF THE LEE.

THE banks of the Lee, the banks of the Lee,

And love in a cottage for Mary and me!

There 's not in the land lovelier tide,

And I'm sure that there's no one so fair as my bride.

She's modest and meek,

There's a down on her cheek,

And her skin is as sleek

As a butterfly's wing;

Then her step would scarce show

On the fresh-fallen snow,

And her whisper is low,

But as clear as the spring.

O the banks of the Lee, the banks of the Lee,
And love in a cottage for Mary and me!
I know not how love is happy elsewhere,
I know not how any but lovers are there.

O, so green is the grass, so clear is the stream,
So mild is the mist and so rich is the beam,
That beauty should never to other lands roam,
But make on the banks of our river its home!
When, dripping with dew,

The roses peep through,

"T is to look in at you

They are growing so fast;
While the scent of the flowers
Must be hoarded for hours,

'Tis poured in such showers

When my Mary goes past.

O the banks of the Lee, the banks of the Lee,
And love in a cottage for Mary and me!

O, Mary for me, Mary for me,

And 't is little I'd sigh for the banks of the Lee!

Thomas Davis.

THE BELLS OF SHANDON.

WITH

ITH deep affection
And recollection,

I often think of

The Shandon bells,

Whose sounds so wild would

In days of childhood

Fling round my cradle

Their magic spells.
On this I ponder,
Where'er I wander,

And thus grow fonder,
Sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee.

I've heard bells chiming
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in,

Cathedral shrine,

While at a glib rate

Brass tongues would vibrate;

But all their music

Spoke naught like thine;
For memory, dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of thy belfry, knelling
Its bold notes free,